With both OSO and Saawariya outscoring the Robert Redford-Tom Cruise political thriller, ‘Lions for Lambs’, at the international box-office, our desi actors have surely made a mark on the international scene.

To add to that, the latest rumour says that Hrithik Roshan is making his Hollywood debut with none other than Penélope Cruz. The film will be extensively shot in Hollywood.

Penélope’s agent, who had asked for Hrithik’s profile, was bowled over by his international look and recommended him to the Spanish actress.

On the female front, after Ash, it is Rani Mukherjee now who has been offered a role in Hollywood. However, the lady says she wants to do interesting roles and the country she works hardly matters. Rani says that she is not willing to go west just for the sake of acting in a Hollywood movie.

Arshad Warsi plays the second lead in Vivek Agnihotri’s “Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal” but his absence from the film’s promotional campaign built up the rumour that the actor is upset because his co-star John Abraham has got a meatier part.

However, Arshad denies all this and explains, “I was in bed for two weeks. I had terrible allergy attack. My face was completely swollen. It started with a viral fever. But after two days I started getting itchy and swollen. I had kept time aside for the ‘Goal’ promo. Thank god I wasn’t the only actor in the project. That would’ve been disastrous.”

“I knew ‘Goal’ was John’s film, and I knew what I had to do with my character. I was given a fair deal all the way to the promotion and publicity. It’s like ‘Om Shanti Om’. It is Shah Rukh’s film. Arjun Rampal couldn’t be in all the publicity. Likewise ‘Goal’ is John’s film,” adds the humble actor.

Arshad is turning producer with the movie in which he will play the lead. He is also the scriptwriter for the movie which will be directed by Raja Sen. Naseeruddin Shah and Konkona Sen Sharma are the other two actors Arshad wants in his first production.

Madhuri Dixit’s dancing skills have not faded a bit with passing years, as is undoubtedly proved by the promos of her forthcoming flick ‘Aaja Nachle’ releasing on 30th November.

Now, Mads will make her fans dance along again with her dance number ‘Dance With Me’. This English track has been written by Asif Ali Beg who in the past has written for films like ‘NEAL N NIKKI’, ‘DHOOM 2’ and ‘VICTORIA NO. 203’, among others. The song crooned by Sonia Saigal will show Madhuri’s grip in western dance too.

Meanwhile, if sources are to be believed this dance diva is unhappy with the way her comeback film is being promoted. Madhuri Dixit feels that the promos and the storyline of the film were leaked too early thus choking the interest and curiosity of the audiences. Anyway, she is keeping her fingers crossed to see the fate of her ambitious project.

She is the face of Maharashtra tourism and now model Mugdha Godse is all set for her Bollywood debut and how. The pretty gal will play the role of a supermodel in Madhur Bhandarkar’s ‘Fashion’ with scenes reminiscent of Carol Gracias’s famous ‘wardrobe malfunction’.

“It’s a hard-hitting performance oriented role which tracks the journey of a model,” says the 23-year-old. As for the malfunction, it could still happen without being there in the script.

She is looking all shaped-up, gorgeous and confident. She is still basking in the success of her recent release ‘Jab We Met’. She has already been featured in ads for Globus, Citizen Watches, Emami Winter Care Cream, Lux, and ICI Paints… And now she has signed two more brands, viz., Head & Shoulders and ITC soap.

The ITC soap will be under the baton of Fiama Di Wills’ range of personal products. Besides all of that, she is also in talks with an international company for a personal care product.

That being her endorsements list, Kareena also has her career graph on an upward swing like never before. At present, she is busy with Yash Raj Film’s ‘Tashan’ and Shree Ashtavinayak Cinevision’s ‘Golmaal Returns’.

Amrita Rao’s next on the box-office will be ‘My Name is Anthony Gonzalves’ opposite the newcomer Nikhil Diwedi.

Now, she has signed up David Dhawan’s new film for UTV which will be his first non-comic outing since ‘Swarg’ and ‘Andhiyaan’ at the beginning of his brimming career.
Though David initially wanted Shahid Kapoor as his male lead, eventually, Sidharth the choosy Rang De Basanti Telugu actor has taken over the onus of hero-giri in Dhawan’s film.

Confirming her presence in David Dhawan’s film Amrita says, “It’s not a typical David Dhawan film at all. From what I could make out of the script it’s far removed from the image that he has.”

As for Siddharth, Amrita says she hasn’t met him as yet. “But I’m sure we’ll make an interesting and convincing pair,” says the gal.

Produce Vipul Shah has come up with a novel idea to keep the cast of his film ‘Singh is Kinng’ happy. All his cast members have taken their families along for the two-month-long schedule at Goa Coast in Australia.

Katrina Kaif is staying along with her family, her mom and sisters, in the apartments at Q1, world’s tallest residential tower. Vipul Shah and Akshay Kumar are also there with their families, following which there is a considerable kids group on the sets. The ‘bachcha party’ includes Akshay’s six-year-old son Aarav, Vipul’s sons six-year-old Aryaman and five-year-old Maurya and kids of the line producers.

Talking about it Vipul says, “It becomes extremely difficult to stay away from your family for over two months. We have a start-to-finish schedule at Gold Coast, and that’s when I asked everyone to bring their families along.”

The Jaitley girl has been traveling quite a lot these days. In fact, of late, she has been living life literally out of her suitcase. First she was in Egypt as their brand ambassador, then off to LA shooting for her Hollywood project, came to Mumbai for two days and then went to London. From there she flew down to Dubai, back to Mumbai and finally to Mauritius shooting for her film ‘Money Hai to Honey Hai’. Phew! Must say the girl is quite busy these days.

The chemistry of Sushmita Sen and SRK was breathtaking in ‘Main Hoon Na’. Now, they will share the screen space again in Mudassar Aziz’s debut film ‘Dulha Mil Gaya’. However, Shahrukh only makes a guest appearance in the film opposite Sushmita. The shooting will start in Trinidad and Tobago in March 2007 and Sush is very excited about it.

“I’m looking forward to visiting Trinidad. It was one of the first countries I visited as Miss Universe. I was so touched when Viveck Vaswani (producer) told me people still have my picture in their homes in Trinidad.

Filming there would be fun. And yes, Shah Rukh and I were really good in Main Hoon Na. Dulha Mil Gaya would probably be an encore,” says the charming lady.

Indian Idol winner, Abhijeet Sawant is back. Only this time he will win his admirers with his acting talents. He makes his debut with a new production company called 3S Creation and with a debutant director, Hemant Prabhu.

Titled ‘Lottery’, his debut film will be a romantic drama. It is based on the sotry of a young boy who comes to Mumabi in search of money and success. There will be two new actresses opposite Abhijeet.

Hemant, who has been diecting serials and shows on the smaller screen for past seven years wanted Shreyas Talpade as the male lead, but Shreyas could not accept the offer due to prior commitments. Then Abhijeet was auditioned and finally signed for the film.

Abhijeet is quite excited about his acting debut. Never having acted before, Abhijeet informs, “I always wanted to be singer and never thought I’d see myself in films. But I have been getting offers since the last two years. It is just that now I am thinking to take it up seriously. My acting workshop has already started.”

The music of the film is being composed by Santokh Singh. Abhijeet will be the playback singer for all songs along with Sunidhi Chauhan and Shreya Ghoshal. ‘Lottery’ will be shot entirely in Mumbai and will be ready by February. The film will hit the screens in March.

Such is her appeal that for the second time this year Maxim has put Yana Gupta on the cover! The pictures she has posed for in this edition are real hot but Yana was cool as cucumber during this near-bare-all shoot, for the only reason that it was shot in London, which, according to this lovely lady, is a cool place to-do such shoots, since, ‘people there are comfortable with nudity’!

As we told you, Yana is currently working on a music album in London. The lady, in her interview, also hinted at the fact that she is single and ready to mingle. However, her man is not about looks, achievements or money. It’s just that he should be smart and witty. Are all the smart guys out there listening?

With Akshay Kumar giving a hattrick of hits this year, there could not be a better year ending for him than the release of his another rib-tickling comedy ‘Welcome’ directed by ace film director, Anees Bazmee, the king of comedy films and featuring Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Anil Kapoor, Mallika Sherawat, Paresh Rawal and Nana Patekar, in avtaars, never seen before.

The storyline goes as such: Uday Shetty (Nana Patekar), Majnu (Anil Kapoor) and their boss, Sikander (Feroz Khan) are basically three Hong Kong-based serio-comic mobsters, who are keen to get their sister Sanjana (Katrina Kaif) married into a respectable family and zero in on Rajiv (Akshay Kumar). Again, Sanjana, who is totally unaware of her brothers’ plans, meets Rajiv on a cruise and they fall in love.

What follows after that, is a commotion of comically funny situations with the confusion reaching it’s climax when a stunning bombshell (Mallika Sherawat), arrives on the scene and claims to be Rajiv’s fiancée which only adds to the hullabaloo and chaos.

The music of Welcome has been composed by some of the biggest music directors of India, Himesh Reshammiya, Sajid-Wajid and Anand Raj Anand. The music, releasing on ‘JUNGLEE’ is already making waves and is on its way to the charts.